Nikko - shrines and forests and a bike!

​

After the tight packed humanity of Tokyo, our family really appreciated the space and return to nature of Nikko.

In addition Mikaya in particular enjoyed this strawberry themed train car. This was the only one we saw. Japan loves cute…

Accessible from Tokyo via a 2 hour train ride, I picked Nikko from a map primarily bc they named their town after our old dog. Secondarily it was known for beautiful nature, ancient shrines and HOTSPRINGS! Aka onsens, more on these later…

Those of our readers who know Chilliwack can look at the above pics and immediately see that we felt at home here.

Our rental place in Nikko came with a bike!!! It was lovely to pedal around again and I took the opportunity to explore the dusty little town of Nikko.

I even got groceries securing the bike with a simple spoke lock, as one does in Nikko… very refreshing.

Nikko on its own is a small service town. It owes its prominence to its proximity to Tobu-Nikko, an area of forests, rivers and mountains shrines, started in 766 AD by the Buddhist monk Shodo Shonin.

This is him, made of stone commanding a bowl with a dragon spouting potable water. A true symbol of Tobu-Nikko if ever there was one.

Apparently the shrines really took off in the 1200s and again in the 1600s

The largest shrines are all grouped together on the mountain above Tobu-Nikko. We started with Futarasan Shrine as it was recommended as less busy. And indeed there were only a few other people exploring the area, even less in the back corners and up steep steps.

It really is pretty incredible that these shrines are hundreds of years old. The intricate craftsmanship and hard wearing materials are a wonder to behold. And how did they come up with this much paint? Were the colours this vibrant when they were new?? 

This is the hand washing/ritual cleansing station at the entrance to the shrine. Kept in good repair with 2 or 3 dippers and fresh water. Check out the painting and carvings on the inside of the roof. This isn’t even the actual shrine!

After a couple hours of official shrining we wandered into the forest to find a spot to eat our snacks and happens on some older less maintained structures that were still phenomenal. Mikaya tried out her meditation skills as did I.

On our way back we walked along the river and again communed with our Chilliwack roots. The walk back to the train station was a few km but it was all gradual downhill and Tobu-Nikko is a bustling tourist town with lots of fun restaurants and shops to look at.

The next day we took a bus beyond Tobu Nikko to Lake Chuzenji. Our goal was to do some hiking and see some waterfalls. The bus dropped us basically at Ryuzu falls. The hike was a little underwhelming at first. The falls were nice but the path was a large concrete staircase. However about 200m in the trail turned to dirt as we left the busiest area and we entered a lovely forest that we had basically to ourselves.

The river continued in little cascades over granite. The falls are at 1280m and as we hiked up we left spring behind. The trees only had the barest buds on them. Still lovely.

Picture above me hugging Levi in the sunshine is an official “picture taking area” it did have a nice view. We think it must have been for tour groups to get group shots. This whole raised boardwalk section was quite an endeavour for some national park program, especially considering we only saw 2 people after the waterfall area. We did about 7km out and back on this trail, but there was quite a network to explore.

On the way home the kids chose to eat at Gusto. This was primarily bc a review said the waiter is a robot cat. It’s more of a robot tray holder with a cat face on its screen but it was entertaining and mildly disconcerting regardless. My food was not great but Mikaya and Kylie liked their pizza and Levi liked his Japanese style burger. The kids all enjoyed the drink bar. We ordered on a tablet at the table and paid at another one by the door. A restaurant with no real front staff was a bit weird. Maybe this is the future but my guess is Canadians will  pay for face to face interactions for a while yet. A restaurant is a different experience than shoppers drug mart…

I don’t think we took any pictures of our tiny house in Nikko but it was perfect and also right beside a train and bus stop. Small and practical (the house I mean but also the train stop…). Three tiny bedrooms a kitchen and a bathroom (toilet and shower/sink area separate as is common here. It did have sliding paper walls and our kids managed to not smash through any of them which was quite an achievement.

Great weather for exploring and it can’t be overstated how much of a relief it was to let our kids roam wider and make more noise and climb and jump off things without scaring the locals. People in Nikko (which I think doesn’t see many tourists) were very friendly and happy to chat even if they hardly spoke any English. By this point Ty was getting pretty good at Japanese and could ask basic questions as well as answer the obvious ones.  Canada-jin des!